William Morris: Bird & Pomegranate
Will Day:
Creative Arts Therapist. Practitioner of various creative arts. Camaldolese
Oblate.
Using
Objects.
Collect small
objects: Stones, old keys, little figurines of animals and humans... again, go
to a $2 shop or an op shop and explore; all sorts of small things, dragons,
buddhas, kittens, marbles, coloured
matchsticks .... Or gather ordinary everyday things like old batteries, cotton
buds, paper clips, bulldog clips, bottle tops, little chocolate easter eggs
wrapped in bright shiny tin-foil... Your own creativity will draw you to all
sorts of small things you had never considered as art materials or creative
prompts.
I've come home
from an op shop with a large bag of countless small rolls of wool of all
textures and colours, and a bag of numerous buttons of all colours and shapes.
A handful of sticks, some buttons and a handful of wool is the beginning of a
great creative art session.
Select three or
four objects, or a handful and begin to play with them, arranging them in
various ways, creating a tableau, a meaningless but aesthetically satisfying
tableau. Or create a more directed narrative of some kind. Let the shapes,
textures, colours and arrangements give you pleasure. You may feel a little
foolish at first but that's ok; feel foolish, and keep playing. You don't have
to make something profound, you simply play, and discover the pleasure and
satisfaction of pleasing your own, individual creative sensibility - “Why am I
so delighted by the way that tiny button sits in the middle of that triangle of
cotton buds?” Why? Who knows, and who cares, what is real is that it appeals to
you.
If you can't find
your way in with a particular set of objects, put them aside and try something
else. Experiment! discover YOUR desires, YOUR taste, YOUR pleasure....
Create a little
tabeau on your window sill and let it sit there to please you over time. You
might eventually add to it, subtract from it, remove it, create a new one. One
day you might look at it and be surprised to discover your playful tableau is
communicating something about a dilemma you are grappling with; it has entered
you and is speaking to you like a dream perhaps....
One of the lovely
dream teachings I encountered a while back suggests you carry the previous
night's dream with you during the day like a small pebble in your pocket,
absent-mindedly turning it over in your fingers now and then as you make your
way here and there; your arrangement of objects can be like that pebble in your
pocket.
But, I want to
emphasise, your tableau doesn't have to reveal significant meanings, or any
'meaning' at all, it is alive and great just as it is, as fruit of your play...
Objects from
nature.
Go into your
garden, or onto the nature strip, or a nearby park, or down to the river or the
creek to find your 'materials'. Leaves, seed pods, twigs (you can break a few
twigs into small sticks all about the same size) bark, fallen flowers, fruit
pips, stones ... a little soil, or sand, or gravel, all those different
textures ... You will be surprised what you discover. The more carefully you
look, the more curious and fascinating the things you will find and wonder at,
the rich creativity of our natural environment.
This is a
beautiful way to discover your garden, or your parkland, and to enter into a
much deeper relationship with those places; you tune into the objects which in
themselves are tuned into the environment, so they lead you in there... You may
be drawn to simply sit there amongst and within it all, and believe me, the
more deeply you enter into the creativity within the natural world, the more
deeply it will feed your own creativity.
Take your
materials home, find a quiet spot, light a candle, perhaps put some music on,
lay down a sheet of paper and look at your riches – colours, textures shapes,
reflect on them and take these things into you (this is satisfying and
enriching in itself, simply looking and feeling). Begin discovering and playing
with, arranging, your bits and pieces. You may introduce some non parkland
materials; you might combine leaves, petals and twigs with torn bits of
textured paper and pastel lines.
Sit and gaze at
what you have made.
What do you see?
Does your creation
speak to you in some way? Remind you of anything? Prompt a train of thought or
an idea? Spark another creative activity?
Let yourself be
fascinated by very simple arrangements of very simple things – move them
around, draw in response to them, move in response to them, talking to them
with your body. If dance is intimidating, just start with your hands, move your
hands – let your creation inspire your hands to spontaneously move. Or use
words; chat to or with your objects; is there a poem lurking somewhere within
you?
There is an
ethical question when it comes to collecting materials from nature it seems to
me. Given how we humans have so plundered and despoiled this poor planet, do we
have a right to take things from the parkland rather than leave them there to
do their natural thing? Sometimes I think not. Sometimes I'm less concerned.
Sometimes I take things home but prefer to return them to a natural setting
when I've finished playing. In general, I find it hard to take living
things, to tear leaves off a tree, flowers from a bush... there is so much
material already lying under the trees and strewn on the ground...
Having said all
that, it is very enjoyable to gather and create with your natural objects in
their natural setting. Sit under a tree amongst the leaves and sticks and begin
making; sit on the sand and play with the shells and sea-weed like a small
child; sit in your backyard and while away an hour or two...
Box of
Images and Pieces of Paper.
Another variation
on this sort of thing is what we might loosely call collaging. Collect cut-outs
from newspapers and magazines. Collect packaging, old gift paper, shopping
bags, wax paper... you are collecting colour, shape, texture, images and
print...
With all these
kinds of pastimes it is not just your conscious mind that chooses your
materials, your spirit is choosing too and sometimes for reasons you know
nothing about.
Collect your bits
and pieces and keep them in a box. When moved, take out the box, light a candle
(or not) chose a subject (or not) and, as with your collection of little
objects, or the materials you might gather from the garden, begin arranging,
collaging, stopping, looking, reflecting, resting quietly... Ask 'What do I see?'... 'How does this
feel?'... and notice what images or associations come forth within you. Or
simply enjoy the experience of letting your creativity flow aimlessly, in an
undirected fashion. Experiment.
If you let
yourself fall into creative play in these ways your creativity will
spontaneously come up with actions and ideas that surprise, delight and
possibly confront you. This may be in terms of what you depict and how (and where
that takes you), or perhaps the manner in which you use your materials. Whether
your materials be leaves and sticks, images and wax paper, crayons, paints or
pencils, allow your creativity to be alive to the many possibilities with any
given object or art material. You may be inspired to use your crayon in a way
you never have before; unwrap it and use the side of it on the paper; smudge
the colour on the page, smudge one colour into another, use the crayon dust on
your fingers to make marks on the page; fold, tear, crumple or make holes in
your sheet of paper before you begin drawing on it...
Let yourself
follow these creative impulses (if you dare) and this in itself will enrich you
and can flow into how you travel through the rest of the day.
You may find
yourself becoming more alive to the way life dances with you. Colours, and the
relationships between colours may be more vivid and more distinctly themselves,
more delightful to you. The forms of objects may seem to be more unique and
fascinating. You may see beauty in surprising places. You may find yourself
doing something differently, spontaneously, rearranging something and starting
again. Your relationships with others may become a little more spontaneous and
playful. Your attitude to yourself may become more open and curious. You may
notice more of what Buddhist nun Pema Chodron calls 'Life's echoes and
messages': the spontaneous, creative ways in which Life, Spirit, Consciousness,
God, communicates with you constantly throughout the day with images, gestures,
sights, words, interactions, weather changes etc. All of them pregnant with
symbolic weight, echoing and reflecting you, and offering newness over and
over....
Creativity is a
recalibrating energy which flows into us, within us and out of us and,
potentially, reorganises to the good.
Some of you may
know contemporary Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughan Lee; speaking of the USA he
suggests it is a culture which, like none before, has repressed the 'inner
worlds'; the imaginal, the symbolic, the creative, the intuitive, the realms of
angels, faeries, messages from God and from nature, the deep mysterious realms
within us and without us which enrich life and give it depth of meaning. It
seems to me that activities like those I am describing here are portals to some
of those hidden realms within us...
What Do You
See?
This is a lovely
question and guide if we wish to reflect on our creativity and what we have
made.
'What do you see?'
is the title of a book by art therapist Maya Betensky; the idea, as I have used
it, is to sit back from your creation, gazing and reflecting for a while in
silence, letting go of your preconceptions, judgements etc and allowing the
image, or creation to enter you and letting yourself enter it. Then you move
into a process of noticing.
What do I notice?
This isn't an interpretive process, it is literally about what you see in
front of you ...I notice there is a lot of yellow on the page.... I notice
the drawn image is in the bottom right hand corner and the rest of the page is
blank... I notice lots of wavy lines... I notice the way the blotch of green
bleeds into the blotch of brown... I notice the marks on the page are strong
and deeply etched ... or fine and feathery....
And you may notice
your internal reactions to the things you notice; that jarrs with me, that
soothes me, the proximity of those two things reminds me of X in my life, that
row of dots makes me chuckle, the colour of that line reminds me of a building
I know or of another drawing I once did, or of a dream I had... Let your being
contemplate the image and your internal responses. Your creativity and
intuition will make of it what they will, or not, and in their own time...
An image, a colour, a shape or a relationship between
shapes may simply be profoundly comforting... and for no obvious reason.
A blank space
inside a circle may be disconcerting...and
for no conscious reason
A stick figure of
a man may bring a spontaneous realisation which has nothing obvious to do with
a stick figure of a man.
There are various
interpretive, analytical and therapeutic steps which might follow on from these
kinds of noticings, and there are various processes which might be used to
explore such territory. They can be pursued if one should choose to do so. But
they are not necessary.
However if you
wish to find an experienced practitioner to assist you in your explorations
most towns and cities will have listings for art therapists, creative arts
therapists and various other kinds of practitioners who are skilled in
accompanying you in exploring your creative work in relation to your life, your
history, your concerns and desires.
You may wish to
take a course to refine your skill
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